


A World Where Roses Bloom

by alliterations



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Mentioned suicide attempt, Not Really Character Death, References to Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:52:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1432546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alliterations/pseuds/alliterations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of these days, these lifetimes, he'll get it right</p>
            </blockquote>





	A World Where Roses Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this on a whim on tumblr after a few drinks and reading way, WAY too many reincarnation/25 lives fics. And then I realized that "whim" was like 3k words, so I might as well post it here too. Minor edits in the meantime. The title comes from the english lyrics of La Vie En Rose.

On the day of his trial, Sanae Hanekoma had nothing to say for himself. He thought the eventual verdict was borne from lack of leniency, that he should know better and be held to higher standards than the young, unpredictable Composer he was in charge of, but as he was being led along to await execution, the Angel to his left said something that indicated the contrary.

"You don’t remember, do you?" 

The comment, so out of place and so out of character for one of his kind, nearly caused him to trip out of shock, before he managed to come up with a reply. 

"I don’t know what you’re talking about." 

"That’s all right," said the Angel to his right, replying in the stead of the other. "Let’s just say, We expected this from you." 

"Then why wasn’t—" 

"Your desperation to save Yoshiya Kiryu could have come in many, many forms," interrupted the first. "And besides, there is a power at play higher than even Us." 

Their words were at once both cryptic and transparent, making Hanekoma’s head spin with half-formed thoughts and a sense of deja-vu so intense it was nauseating. Maybe he could understand if his part of the Angels’ hivemind hadn’t been dulled by Producerhood, but the only thing he could think of in the moments leading up to his mandated Erasure for all transgressions was Joshua, his stricken expression and gem of a smile all at once, the days and days they spent together, the moments when he could have said something more, done something different, sent everything splintering off into a thousand different universes where everything was better, and

_I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sor—_

●

The next time, Hanekoma was an ordinary man living as ordinary a life as a famous artist can, sitting out on the balcony of his apartment on an early summer morning, drinking a cup of coffee and dreading the interview he had for some magazine or other in a few hours. A nagging feeling in the back of his mind told him he should have stayed anonymous when he had the chance, it would have made him so much happier, but how would he really know that? 

Unlike all the other ordinary mornings leading up to this one, however, there were sounds coming from the apartment above his own. It had just been filled recently, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected, but the noise was not of someone stretching in the wan early sunshine, or doing light exercises, or hanging out freshly washed sheets. Instead, he heard the soft melody of someone beginning to sing.

The song was in a foreign language with a vaguely familiar tune, like something often put in movies or music boxes, and it made Hanekoma feel vaguely nostalgic. Or perhaps that was the voice instead, honeyed and lilting and full of something that reminded him, strangely, of coffee shops, of lavender, of a weight in his chest he didn’t realize he’d been carrying.

In the silence following the last notes, Hanekoma applauded, leaning backwards over the railing of the balcony to hopefully catch the eye of whoever had been singing. He was met by a boy who didn’t look older than sixteen, with pale ashen hair and a pair of bright violet eyes that made Hanekoma’s heart lurch. 

_You remind me of someone,_ he wanted to say. 

"Hey," he said, instead, and the boy stared back at him blankly. "You’re pretty good."

"Oh. Glad you enjoyed it. I was about to apologize for disturbing your morning."

"Nah. Nothing like that." Hanekoma shook his head, ignoring the way the metal bar of the railing was digging into his spine. "I’m Sanae Hanekoma, by the way. I take it you’re my new…ah, next floor up neighbor."

"Yes." He laughed, the sound of it muffled and carried away by a sudden breeze, and Hanekoma had the crazy impulse to chase after it. For some reason, he thought it had to be something precious. "I’m Joshua Kiryu. It’s nice to meet you. My mother will undoubtedly be by with fancy tea for you later. She’s like that." 

"I’m lookin’ forward to it." He cracked a grin just as the other turned towards his own apartment, apparently preoccupied with someone talking to him just out of Hanekoma’s hearing range. 

"Well, sorry to run, but apparently breakfast is ready." Joshua shrugged, apologetically, and Hanekoma was seized by a bizarre sense of anxiety, that he shouldn't let the other go like this, that there was something more to him, to _them_. Although that notion was downright insane, and Hanekoma knew it. They had just met five minutes ago. The voice speaking in the edges of his mind, whispering _he hates coconut and likes his coffee with cream, not sugar. He hides his smiles but you can always tell when he's being genuine because you know him,_ had to be the remnants of an unusually vivid dream not yet chased away by caffeine. By the time he came to that conclusion and pulled himself from the dregs of his own subconscious, Joshua was already gone. 

And all the mornings after, they’d chat for just a bit after Joshua finished whatever song he decided to practice for the day. Even if Hanekoma grew to know the other’s moods from what he sung, even if he had a terrifyingly strong impulse to form a stronger contact, there was nothing else. Nothing more. 

Just a voice that reminded him of something he was missing. 

●

It was hopeless. 

Modeling agent, right hand to a mafia head, detective, _florist,_ and none of them managed to be any better than any of the Hanekomas that had come before them. It wasn’t until the last, when he was a bodyguard to Joshua, an important diplomat’s only child, that he _remembered._ And even then, it took doing his job properly and getting four bullets stuck into him for everything to click into place. The last thing he saw in that lifetime was Joshua kneeling over him, struggling against the other bodyguards trying to pull him to safety, Hanekoma’s blood all over his hands, repeating, _Sanae, no no no no, not you, Sanae, **Sanae—**_

It was good, this time. He managed to save Joshua and it was all better. He wanted to tell the other that, tell him to stop looking so upset, but by that point his lungs had stopped working.

Everything was dark. Everything was fine. 

_●_

There were countless universes stacked on top of each other and in parallel like an endless deck of cards, shuffled around at the whim of Fate, who was the worst dealer around. 

Hanekoma kept getting bad hands, which he never used to. 

Hideki Kiryu was the head of an international finance firm that dealt a lot with the company Hanekoma was climbing the ranks of. He had a daughter, one Yoshiko Kiryu, who he thought could do no better for a husband than Hanekoma himself. 

For all intents and purposes, Fate was finally throwing him a bone. This was his jack and ace, because Joshua was Joshua was Joshua, no matter the incarnation. But in this lifetime, in this universe, he had already lost.

"I’m sorry, if you’re looking for me to even be a little cooperative about this," Yoshiko had told him, after her parents had left the room to give them time to get to know each other, violet eyes severe and so, so familiar. "I love someone else." 

"Funny." Hanekoma laughed, even though the last thing he felt was humor, and stared into the depths of his drink. "I guess I do too." 

But because for any Joshua, he’d go and fetch whatever star they said they wanted in the night sky, he agreed to help her.

At least it would be easy playing dumb when she ran off with Neku Sakuraba (Fate was either as cruel as they said or dropped Hanekoma off in the wrong place, this time). More difficult was the charade they had to play at an engagement party until it was the right time.

He danced with her to the same song he remembered first hearing coming from the apartment balcony of the Joshua who could sing so beautifully, as she stared up at him critically with eyes he saw in his dreams no matter where he ended up.

"I guess it’s none of my business," she started, pausing as he spun her through a short turn. "But after this, are you meeting whoever it is you want to be with?" 

Hanekoma thought of all the lifetimes before and all the lifetimes to follow, endlessly chasing that inevitability, of the countless ways their paths cross, over and over and over again.

"Yeah," he finally answered, watching, for the first time, Yoshiko’s face light up with a small, genuine smile. "Yeah, I am."

_●_

"Are you sure I don’t know you?" Joshua squinted at him in the darkened hotel room, backlit by the whole neon glory of Shibuya’s skyline glowing through the large window to the left of the bed. 

_Of course you do, you know me best, you’re everything I’m chasing and everything I want_

"Maybe I just have one of those faces," Hanekoma replied, turning his gaze up towards the ceiling, feeling the mattress shift as Joshua did, propping himself up on one elbow. 

"I doubt it." He snorted before trailing one hand up Hanekoma’s chest, eyebrows still furrowed thoughtfully. "It’s strange, but I feel like we’ve done this before." 

He still knew where Joshua liked to be touched from flickers of memories imbedded into a lifetime ago that took place in a room above a cafe that was hardly ever open. But he swallowed against blurting out that information, just as he had to choke back _I love you, I love you,_ when he had Joshua coming apart in his arms earlier. 

"Maybe I’m just that good." At that, Joshua’s expression flicked from puzzled to enticed, and he was soon straddling Hanekoma’s waist, rolling his hips down with a heavy sigh that sounded as lovely as he looked, lit up in the colors of the city. 

"Prove it." 

And it’s enough, enough for this time, better than nothing at all. 

_●_

"You’re a coward," Megumi Kitaniji told him, the end of his cigarette glowing like the deep orange and red of the sunset sky above them. They were both nine-to-five businessmen while Joshua was an idol who branched off into acting, and whose career had skyrocketed in the past few years. The closest Hanekoma had gotten was seeing Joshua’s face plastered on billboards and on TV, everywhere but out of reach. 

"Yeah, well, what do you want me to do about it?" Hanekoma blew a cloud of smoke out, watching it rise and disperse into the air.

"More than whatever it is you think you’re doing right." Kitaniji considered him for a moment, tapping his cigarette against his lips thoughtfully. "What is it that you want, Sanae?"

_Joshua._

"I guess I wanted to keep him safe, to do what I couldn’t do all the other times, but that isn’t it."

"Even if that really was all there is to it, there’s only so much I can take of you lying around and whining about Fate not being fair." He shook his head, folding one arm across his torso. "If I have to put up with another lifetime of this…"

"You’ve made your point." Hanekoma dropped his cigarette to the ground, smashing it under the toe of his shoe with more force than necessary. "Still doesn’t tell me what I should do." 

"Well, I’m not irrecoverably in love with someone across universes and timelines." Kitaniji shrugged, _that’s all there is to it,_ and Hanekoma thought of the smell of lavender and a smile he fell in love with again and again and again but could never have for himself. "So what do I know?" 

_●_

So he tries. And tries. And tries and tries and tries not to fall in love. Not to meet. Not to think. Not to remember. 

He fails, every time. 

He was a psychiatrist in the ward of a hospital, and one of his cases was a boy named Joshua Kiryu, who had a failing respiratory system. The prognosis was’t stellar, and Hanekoma was assigned to handle the patient’s depression over wrestling with his illness. Joshua’s file notes he’s attempted suicide twice already. 

"I just don’t understand the point in dragging this on," he said, when he first met Hanekoma. "I’m going to die. Why can’t I get it over with? It’s not like I’m living to the fullest stuck in this place." 

"I don’t think anything I say is going to convince ya." Hanekoma sighed, scratching at the back of his neck. Joshua had always been pale and slender, but seeing him in a hospital bed, ashen and drawn and so, so tired, Hanekoma almost wanted to sob. If he could trade his own lungs for Joshua’s he would in a heartbeat. "But if it makes you feel any better, you can always live the next one better." 

"You believe in that reincarnation nonsense?" 

"Yeah, kinda." Joshua peered at him with interest, and Hanekoma made a note on the file. "If you want to know more, I can tell you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" The other’s expression pinched, and Hanekoma held back a laugh as he moved to stand. "Why not now?"

"Ah, well. Think of it as something to look forward to."

It was so small, such a tiny promise, but it grew, every day. They’d talk and talk and talk and Hanekoma was the reason now, the last bright spot Joshua was clinging to. It was perfect and awful at the same time, twisting Hanekoma’s insides into knots, but if he could do one thing right, if he could preserve that smile for a little longer, maybe Fate would be kinder during the next spin of the wheel.

Inevitably, Joshua’s primary doctor stopped Hanekoma in the hall one day, informing him that the patient’s condition had taken a severe turn for the worse. Infection, he had said, and a nasty one at that, unresponsive to antibiotic treatments so far.

Regardless of being relieved from his actual duties as a physician, Hanekoma still made his way into Joshua’s room at the same time he always did. The other’s parents were out, maybe getting something to eat, but their presence still remained in the room in the form of jackets hung over the back of twin chairs set next to Joshua’s bedside. Hanekoma pulled up a third, watching him breathe into the mask over his face and listening to the steady _beep beep_ of his pulse on the machines. Surprisingly, Joshua’s eyes fluttered open.

"Dr. Sanae." His voice was raspy, weak, and Hanekoma immediately interrupted him before he could say more. 

"Hey, hey, you don’t have to talk, J. I just came to see you for a second." Despite the insistence that he remain silent, Joshua shook his head, as vigorously as he was able.

"I wanted to thank you. At first I thought you were just doing your job. being nice to me, but…" His hand shifted on the bed sheets and, unthinkingly, Hanekoma took it. Joshua’s grip was nearly insubstantial, but his fingers curled around Hanekoma’s regardless. "Even if what you told me about next lives isn’t true, I don’t really mind. For the first time in a while, I felt like someone understood me. So thanks, for making me happy at the end. You didn’t have to go that far."

"Of course I did." Every second was a knife digging into the pit of his stomach, but he still met Joshua’s gaze, still took a last look at the pair of violet eyes in this lifetime that were already starting to droop closed from exhaustion. "You’re welcome, Joshua."

He waited until he was sure the other was asleep again before slipping out of the room. And in the very early hours of the morning, by the time he heard about the code blue happening, it was already too late. He didn’t need to go into the room, didn’t need to witness grieving parents, didn’t need to see the responding physicians checking their watches for times to mark on forms.

He merely found a supply closet he knew would be empty, sinking to the floor the moment the door was shut behind him, and wept.

 _●_

"You feel like home," the latest one said, clinging to Hanekoma in an airport terminal before being dragged off halfway across the world for his music. Always music, somehow, someway. Voice, violin, guitar, cello, piano, piano, _piano._ ”I don’t understand.”

"You will," Hanekoma promised, letting him go and pushing him towards his gate. At the end, they were promised happiness. At the end, Joshua had to remember. "You will."

_●_

In the middle of spring, along Cat Street, Hanekoma heard a familiar tune coming from a cafe’s open window. The day is not unlike the one lifetimes ago, when he had met a little boy standing out in the middle of the street, watching Noise and Reapers run by. 

But that was not this, and when Hanekoma pushed open the door with the arm not cradling his sketchbook, he found instead a young man with his wavy hair tied up, playing at a piano with pink roses in a vase sitting on top. And this time, when he settled himself at a nearby table just to watch, the other turned towards him and _smiled,_ the brightness of it reaching his beautiful, beautiful eyes, and Hanekoma _knew._

"Hey, Josh. Long time no see." 

"Likewise." He stood from his bench at the instrument and took at seat next to Hanekoma, leaning against his side. "I missed you."

"I know." He'd felt it countless times himself, wondered if all the other Joshua's he'd met had ever thought something was missing, every had the sensation of a space in the very center of their heart where another piece was supposed to fit. But in the thousands and thousands and thousands of paths leading up to this crossroads, and the thousands more branching off from it, they met each other here, like a couple picking each other out of the crowd in the Scramble, while the rest of the city bustled and surged around them. Scandalized cafe patrons be damned, Hanekoma took Joshua’s face into his hands and pulled him into a kiss. There was nothing else but that, and the sun, and the faint smell of lavender from Joshua’s hair, and Joshua himself, and _home._

He’d waited long enough for it. 

_●_

_Give your heart and soul to me, and life will always be, la vie en rose_


End file.
